APPROACHES TO BUY FM104 - The Irish Times is reporting that three groups are believed to have expressed an interest in acquiring Dublin-based youth radio station FM104 following the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland decision on Monday not to sanction its sale to Denis O'Brien's Communicorp.
It is understood that the approaches have been made to UK media group Emap, which is planning to sell FM104, national station Today FM and Highland Radio in Donegal to Mr O'Brien for €200 million.
Under the terms of the sale agreement, however, Mr O'Brien is required to handle any sale of FM104 that might be stipulated by regulators.
The approaches are believed to have come from underbidders for the Emap stations.
These included TV3; Vienna Investments, which is headed by FM104's former chief executive Dermot Hanrahan; UTV; The Irish Times Ltd; and a group comprising UK private equity player Vitruvian Partners and Richard Findlay, a former head of Scottish Radio Holdings.
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MCINERNEY UP ON BID TALK - The Irish Independent is reporting that shares in housebuilder McInerney were up almost 2% in Dublin yesterday following renewed speculation on a takeover bid.
Demand for the stock, which has now risen by almost 40% in just over a week, was fuelled by news that one of its major shareholders, the insurance group Allianz, has raised its stake to 12.9%, with other fund buyers snapping up the stock.
Analysts said a takeover bid would make sense right now, if only because management believes that the stock has been way oversold on the market.
One analyst quoted pointed out that while it might look odd to conduct a management buy-out within months of a major placing on the market, it would mean taking on less debt.
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TULLOW ABANDONS GHANA WELL - Tullow has abandoned an appraisal well on the Shallow Water Tano block off shore Ghana having failed to find commercial quantities of oil, according to the Irish Examiner.
The well was drilled to a depth of 3,075 metres.
Tullow said in August it had discovered ‘significant’ quantities of oil off the coast involving significant light oil accumulation based on the results of drilling, wireline logs and samples of reservoir fluid.
Tullow said hydrocarbon bearing sandstones were encountered in the well, but logging results showed that the sandstones would not flow at commercial rates.
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EADS CHIEF TO ABOLISH SHARE OPTIONS? - The Financial Times is reporting that Louis Gallois, chief executive of EADS, is proposing to abolish share options for management in the Franco-German aerospace group at the centre of a widening political maelstrom over share transactions by investors and executives.
His comments immediately drew fire from France’s business establishment, which fears such actions could reinforce growing political pressure for a crackdown on share options as the controversy over EADS mounts.
Yesterday, the French parliament began quizzing civil servants and treasury officials over their role in the affair. Augustin de Romanet, head of the state-owned Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations finance house, moved to quell the political furore over its decision to buy EADS shares only two months before a dramatic profit warning, by pledging to shake up its supervisory structures.
Mr Gallois, speaking in an interview with the French daily Le Monde, said share options were a 'debatable' form of executive remuneration 'akin to a lottery' and he would propose to his board that EADS management pay be bolstered by free share grants instead.
